Warning: Contains spoilers for Go! Go! Loser Ranger!
Representation is a continuously unfolding topic in all entertainment media, but the Go! Go! Loser Ranger! anime is fixing an unsolved issue in Power Rangers or Super Sentai. Ethnic and sexual identity, along with neurodivergent visibility, continue to grow in the children’s entertainment monolith, but another milestone hasn’t been crossed. However, this new Hulu anime is poised to put it to the screen. Go! Go! Loser Ranger! will feature their Pink Keeper, whose alter ego uses a wheelchair, a feat still unseen in Power Rangers.
Go! Go! Loser Ranger! features a conflicting twist on the usual Power Rangers formula by portraying their heroes as corrupted over the years. Instead, the central character is a foot soldier, Fighter D, looking to change the status quo and crawl out from beneath their boots.
However, there’s more than meets the eye. Each color Keeper boasts a fascinating ability thanks to their position and transformed states, namely the Pink Keeper’s healing factor in Go! Go! Loser Ranger!, which then allows the series to take a huge step forward in terms of representation.
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Go! Go! Loser Ranger! Features a Pink Ranger Whose Alter Ego Uses a Wheelchair
Sesera Sakurama’s Pink Keeper Form Grants the Ability to Walk
In a move that beats Power Rangers and Super Sentai to the punch, Go! Go! Loser Ranger! reveals in Chapter #13 that Sesera Sakurama, Hibiki’s sister, is paralyzed from the waist down. This reveal carries extra weight moments after she films a shallow makeup commercial as the Pink Keeper before finding her privacy with her Junior First Class, Masurao Nadeshiko, to put her in her wheelchair as she reverts.
It’s a form of representation for the series but with a backstory, as Sesera’s paralysis was from an injury sustained by protecting Hibiki in the past. Still, the reason for Sesera’s ability to walk as the Pink Keeper unassisted in Go! Go! Loser Ranger! remains unanswered, except for the Pink Keeper’s uncanny healing factor. This same healing factor could allow Sesera to walk without her wheelchair while in her Pink Keeper form in Go! Go! Loser Ranger!
Paraplegic Representation Has Appeared Before in One Other Tokusatsu Show
High-Speed Parahero Gandeen Pushes Further Than the Dark Power Rangers Series
While Sesera’s representation in Go! Go! Loser Ranger! is noteworthy. High-Speed Parahero Gandeen is the coolest trailblazer yet. The live-action series focuses on Daishi Morimiya, an aspiring wheelchair athlete whose life is upended when an alien named Guu crash lands on Earth, with warnings of imminent danger. Guu grants Taishi a Mode Shifter, which transforms Daishi’s body yet gives him and his wheelchair a distinctive, powerful suit of armor. It’s the typical Tokusatsu action origin story, but it’s an exciting twist nonetheless.
High-Speed Parahero Gandeen does what Go! Go! Loser Ranger! and Power Rangers never could by letting this athlete embrace his talents in such a direct way. Similar steps have been taken to represent individuals with impairments or disorders. The 2017 Power Rangers movie famously features a Blue Ranger on the Spectrum. Power Rangers: Jungle Fury features the Bat Ranger, the first blind fighter to don the costume.
While the Pink Keeper in Go! Go! Loser Ranger! isn’t always in her wheelchair, the representation is a significant stride forward for anime, and something that the many Power Rangers series still have to do.
Go! Go! Loser Ranger!
